Archive for September 2001

On Wednesday night it was the Ricky & Peter disco-thing. A sort of success if only because I accidentally walked off with The Mules’ copy of Lonnie Smith’s “Funk Reaction” (one of the great record covers of all time?) the title track of which is one of the most cosmically, joyously, stupid funk-outs of which I am aware. At about 10:30 or so Richard Brown approached, nefarious of purpose. “How long is your leash tonight?” he asked, not knowing that I was literally in the act of cueing up the Magnetic Fields’ “Fido, your leash is too long.” And, as he so often is, matey was right on the money.

It was crap, of course, everything cancelled each other out. I was meant to get a taxi back with my gear; I got a backie back with Lord Charles, and left my bag with my keys at The Portland. Much inconvenience resulted.

Yes, the Salvation Army is clearly the place to go. I strolled away today with a Yamaha RX17 Digital Rhythm Programmer and a Yamaha DX 100 Digital Programmable Algorithm Synthesiser for the price of ten pounds, feeling almost guilty. Of course the midi capabilities of the DX100 means that the Â£100 I spent recently on my Roland PC180A might be viewed with hindsight as a needless expenditure, and indeed the sonic possibilities afforded by the considerable range of music and sound-editing software on my PC makes the purchase of both outboard machines a self-indulgence at the very least, and literally taking food out of my child’s mouth at the worst. However I have scant regard for such concepts as “needless expenditure” and “self-indulgence”, and plus I ran all the way to get a place in the queue. I will now go to work for two hours, and get paid ten pounds.

Circling around the Sally-Ann for about twenty minutes this morning, waiting for the old-timer who always charges half-price for everything (7″ singles suddenly become 15p because she doesn’t think they’re worth 30p. I took a necklace up to the counter with a Â£1.85 price tag and she tore off the bit that said Â£1 and charged me 85p) to become disentangled from a discussion about the purchase of a bed. Suddenly I noticed that a new pile of records had been deposited in the racks â€“

Happily I’ve invented a new form of art. Richard Rippin was off to a mutual aquaintance’s 40th birthday party last night, and I mentioned that although I’d rather eat shit in hell than be there myself, I’d have given anything to be a fly on the wall. Richard suggested that he take my video camera along, and now today I can bask in the knowledge that I have footage of three middle-aged Christian women singing “Who’s in the house? God is!”

For some unfathomable reason Syd has changed his views on jumblies. As we all barged in and lurched for the tables I was genuinely astonished to hear helpless chuckling going on behind me (he was in Richard and Jane’s baby-carrier knapsack thingy) â€“ real hyukhyukhyuk stuff, which does occasionally happen with Syd but rarely rarely rarely. Two or three times as I moved about the room, as though he was going: “So this is what all the fuss is about â€“ a load of weirdos and in-breds jostling for piles of rags!”

Bought another hoodie, a shit shirt, an annoying pair of red trousers, some highbrow text (“Transgressing The Modern”) to flog and an old book about jazz (“Jazzbook 1955” – rare? worth something?). And a shirt for Syd when he is about 9- “Sid the Squid”.

Received email form Steven Carter in Brighton saying he’s accidentally passed on a virus â€“ go to such-and-such location on C drive and delete exe. file. I do so, only to receive another saying “no! It was a hoax â€“ don’t delete file!” Expect computer to split down the middle at any moment.

When I went back to bed this morning I had a weird dream. I was in some deserted hotel/library kind of building which I kept wandering around, and all I could think about was how perfect a location it would be for some kind of gangsta shoot-out, or possibly the filming of a gangsta shoot-out, and I was absolutely desperate to get all my Afro-American gang-banging buddies (?!) out there to see it. Eventually they did arrive and I was particularly craven in my attempts to ingratiate myself with them, even to the point of physical hugs and so on. At one point I actually said: “I just had to get my homies to see this!” Normally my dreams are fairly straightforward â€“ I am in a room/a big pile of money/rare records/pictures of naked ladies appears/I try and get there but they keep slipping away/someone comes in and asks me what I am doing…that kind of jazz. But what the fuck is going on here? I’m not some deluded pigmentally-challenged hip-hopper! I think I slept so long I got given someone else’s dream.